


Second Star

by SonriaCat



Series: Tales from Winter Camp [17]
Category: Earth 2 (TV 1994)
Genre: 100 situations, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonriaCat/pseuds/SonriaCat
Summary: A drama reading is cause for Danziger to reflect on a few things about True.





	Second Star

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Play

“Not so fast, Hook!” cried Uly.

Cameron had lowered his voice to a growl. He leaned forward over the table. “So it is, Pan. What are you going to do now? Fly away?”

“I’m no coward!” he responded. “I’ll fight you on deck with one hand behind my back!”

There was a long, awkward pause, and all eyes turned to True. She responded by scrambling through her pages. “Oh. No! Peter! It’s a trick!”

Uly rolled his eyes. “True, that’s not the line.”

She flushed. “I added one word!”

“You added two. Do it again.”

“Uly,” said Yale gently. “It’s all right. Let’s just keep on going.”

Cameron picked up the cue, and read the next line in the script. “Insolent youth! Prepare to die!”

Yale began to read out the description of Peter’s and Hook’s final fight, and Danziger, who was standing back from the action, watched the children. True hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about the play reading at first, but then she’d started reading ahead to find her lines and had gotten lost. Now, she flipped pages for a second, put her finger down in the place she needed, and then looked up, listening.

Obviously, her disdain had vanished. He smiled inwardly. It was good to see her excited about something school-related. Back on the stations, he’d frequently had to push her along to get ready on school mornings. On some days, generally when a big test or project came up, her reticence had even been known to degenerate into outright defiance.

Beside him, Magus nudged his arm. She’d been reading Tiger Lily, but that character had already had its last line. “Hey. Danziger. This has actually been fun. Why didn’t you read a part?”

He had his answer ready. “Rather watch the kids enjoying it. That’s not always easy to do when you’re participating.”

She made a _hmf_ sound. “There’s plenty of down time when you’re reading one of the minor characters. I think you were just chicken.”

His answer was a shrug. “It’s good to see True getting so much better of an education than we did, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes it almost makes me want to go back to school. I remember them making us read _Peter Pan_ because it was a ‘literary classic.’ It was so boring. But if we’d read it like this, I’d probably have liked it.”

“This is a play,” he reminded her. “Not the original book. And I’ll bet if this were an actual school instead of tutoring, they’d have made them read that.”

“Well,” she shot back, “maybe since you’ll be one of the parents, you’ll be able to stop that.”

He opened his mouth to express his doubt, but closed it before anything came out. Yale had asked him about True’s education a couple of times before. His answer had always been to defer to the other man’s judgment; what did Danziger know about schooling, after all?

But just last night, Devon had drawn him aside. _This isn’t the stations, Danziger._

_I know that_ , he’d told her.

_That means you’re allowed to have an opinion about what she learns and how she learns it. We’d value your input._

It was a startling idea. Back on the stations, they’d been pretty strict about sticking to the official curricula and testing schedules. Input and involvement from the parents was officially encouraged, but only within strictly defined limits, and it often seemed to him like the conference hours were deliberately scheduled to be as inconvenient as possible.

When he’d been growing up, school was a chore, something kids had to just put up with and get through. He’d never looked as rapt as True did now, as they finished the play and started discussing it. He’d thought such things were an affectation, just another thing that the folks on the upper levels did in order to emphasize how much better they were than the drones.

But he had to admit that seeing True in animated discussion about _Peter Pan_ made him both proud and thankful. He’d already made sure she wouldn’t face any inherited debt, but he’d known that she’d still face an uphill battle due to her upbringing.

With opportunities like this, though, it might not be as difficult after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The Peter Pan script the group is reading can be found at <http://bwayboundnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/PETER-PAN-SCRIPT.pdf>.


End file.
